Goodreads Doesn't Have It, Data Migration: A Crisis of Responsibility
[edit] Crisis of Responsibility
David’s book really reads like the student you’re really incredibly proud of who has come a long, long way who still has a little bit of work to do and is only getting just a few things a little wrong. I really, really love it and I want to go into the brilliant points–many of which I didn’t think about before, and are very valid, if not difficult–and some of the issues here.
First, it’s incredible that he wrote this book. Crisis of Responsibility is really naming the problem. It truly is the case that there is a crisis of responsibility. When it isn’t bureaucracy, it’s capitalism, when it isn’t capitalism, it’s this or that nation, when it’s not this or that nation, it’s something or another. But he makes the most excellent point on page 159 that I think everybody should hear, “The people appear ready to reject a top-down societal structure, but meanwhile, our preparation for assuming the bottom-up responsibilities of self-governance is wholly inadequate.” I think this is very true. As someone who is trying to get people to take the responsibility required to reject what they supposedly hate so hard by investing in their communities, volunteering, doing their share in the household, speaking directly to people, not playing power politics but speaking the truth for the health of everyone, etc., this entirely correct.
That said, David contradicts himself at a key point. He says, “The people want a king.” I hear him; people don’t want to take responsibility. They want a leviathan. They don’t want to work. They want to punish hard workers who make them look bad, causing market failures out of pure laziness. In addition, there is a tone of sexism to it as well when he brings in Hillary Clinton, but then pretends like he’s solely rejecting her based on her establishment impotence, which is a valid criticism. But when criticism is surrounded on either end with “We want a king”, it becomes clearly implicitly the idea is “We want a male”. The problem here is that I’m people and I don’t want a male. Most of my best and most diligent students have been women. Women score highest on tests. Black women in particular are the only ones I know taking on extra responsibilities to train and nurture where other people don’t want to do it out of pure selfishness, and in those instances where I have shared the burden with them I have been exhausted, blown away by the ignorance, and blown away by the selfishness and condescension with which black men treat them. So, I’m people, and I don’t want a king, just from sheer experience and mistakes where I said, “Ok, let’s try this ‘king’ thing for the sake of inclusion” and it was bad again. I learned the hard way. He shouldn’t speak for us; he should speak for himself. He wants to be king. Well, most men do. Just don’t speak for everyone. He has a right to shoot his shot, but not by putting words in other’s mouths.
One thing I will say in defense of Hillary is it is often bureaucracies, namely the university bureaucracy, that does a great job of preventing sexism by sticking specifically to cognizable, spelled out facts. It’s only in these institutions that women really have a chance to stand out and stick out to the degree Hillary did. Otherwise they are shouted down with vague and nonspecific crap like “The people want a king”. What people? Where’s your paperwork? Where’s your graph? Etc. These vague, unbacked pronouncements are cheap tricks that are antithetical to meritocracy. So my defense of Hillary, although I think she is an issue with jealousy and ego issues in many cases, is that this was probably the only ecosystem that she could actually get noticed on her merit, and even then a lot of it was simply for annexing Bill Clinton in the beginning. That said, I think she’s tough, I think she did it, she got noticed, but she has a series of seriously sick tricks like creating dependency only to take the resources she gave away at opportune moments in a terroristic manner that I am COMPLETELY over. And many people are. Yet she still continues to use her little sick “trump” card of encouraging dependency only to weaponize it. I think most people are over it at this point. Hillary also has a problem with expressed contempt and mocking which is the last toxic energy we need injected in the post-Trump world.
The hard part here was his contradiction. He says immigrants shouldn’t be entitled to American’s welfare system. But then he agrees America is an experiment, where people who were basically thrown away were invested out of poverty and given opportunities, the golden door. There is no pure “American” other than maybe my ancestors at Jamestown, and hey, we were indentured servants who survived only because of some good-hearted Native Americans who were probably better off leaving some of those assholes for dead. So it’s not like survival of the fittest out here; there’s welfare for foreigners from the beginning. That said, I do agree that some things are not cultural–beating your kids, sucking up to men and ignoring women, I don’t care if these things are part of your culture. Your culture’s economy is collapsing. America doesn’t have to collapse with it to keep your culture; after all, you’re here and not that. They should have some respect for the constitution that resulted in an economy far more successful than theirs and the principles from which it derived. So it’s very hard what he’s saying and my knee jerk reaction was “No! Be inclusive!” but when you begin to think about it, there is an element to truth about it.
In addition, I see him trying to scapegoat the Left a little. People are actual victims. The only people I have seen deny this are rapists who don’t want to face what they have done. They may change it to survivor, but I can easily see in the future once over-used, rapists will mock people calling them survivors saying, “A survivor from the beginning huh?” and mourning survivorhood coming from the Left. So that part I don’t agree with. Ted Bundy’s victims did nothing to deserve this insane person coming after them. In fact, they did the right thing having empathy for a guy with a broken case. It was anomalous and shouldn’t be adapted to. I’m not saying that the author condones or commits rape; I’m just saying a lot of this anti-victim rhetoric originated in rape cases, so he needs to do his history seeking on that to avoid being clumped with the villain.
Towards the above point, there are cases where there isn’t responsibility. He brushes off the 10% of people who really were cornered into subprime mortgages and screwed as “the anomaly”. Are you kidding man? If that was the unemployment rate, you’d be having a fit! If that was a tax rate you do have a fit in certain cases! 10% was a lot and had a huge impact. He kind of passes this over and he’s wrong to do so. He also says the people “who could pay didn’t”. I think from their perspective, which was probably failed by math and budgetary education, they thought they couldn't. It sounds like a rationalization for taking houses from them which again is toward the above paragraph. That said, I am sure there is a good chunk of people who could pay and definitely did the math correct knowing they could survive, and still didn’t pay because of just the size of the payment. And I agree those people really are disgusting, and really did cause the crisis to a large extent. Those are usually the same brand of people at the top, yet the people at the top are even more disgusting and don’t plan to pay not incidentally, but strategically. Now that’s gross.
Finally, he nailed it saying that envy was the problem. Envy for other people’s things so they were constantly on credit. It’s interesting that those with the biggest envy issues lack responsibility. They’re always the first to say your success has to do with external factors, and want you to basically roll over and let them win. Again, there is an element of parasitism to them and that’s real. He accurately states that people are bullied because people don't like and even can't stand people that make them feel inferior, show them they have room to improve and the only reason they don't is because they're not taking charge of their dream. I always try to learn from these people. Admiration is my go-to. I see if they're willing to teach me so I can grow while citing them duly. If not, I stop admiring them as vain and find a way to get the skills I admire. At no point do I not try to cite them, to pay them. Not citing, not paying is the mark of serious envy and narcissistic rage.
Overall I entirely agree with the main premise here. People want change, but when we say, “Hey, to have change you need to do xyz" they grumble and groan and don't want to do it. They find ways to avoid responsibility saying, “How can I prevent climate change when corporations are polluting?” If each person in that corporation said, “F no, not going to work here any more individually” it would come crashing down. But they don’t. They keep citing “the big bad institution” and don’t realize that institution is unfortunately not more than a lot of assholes shirking their responsibility.
Overall a truly and incredibly good book that names the problem which is FANTASTIC. I’m pretty leftist but I agree with this more libertarian right side of things in some cases. The only thing I don’t like is the parts where they really get it wrong, such as the cases when there was literally no responsibility on the victim’s end, and to remember 10% is not just a “small” amount of cases. That’s a lot. Don’t run them over on your crusade of responsibility. Care about them. That said, there’s a lot who claim solidarity with them when they are really quite different cases based in laziness and narcissistic rage and I have seen that firsthand.
Great job and I might add to this later.